Pandemic – Utopia – Bioethics

Although it does not seem so at first glance, the COVID-19 pandemic did not make any fundamental changes, both in terms of the socio-economic framework of our actions and in terms of moral action. The reason for this lies primarily in the neglect of the utopian approach, which turned out to be necessary for looking at the socio-economic relations in the sphere of morality. Bioethics can provide a framework for such an in-depth moral questioning. I start this paper with the presentation of the attitude toward the pandemic, which remains within the parameters the inalterability of the world dogma. I then briefly ponder the notion of utopia and the concept of ‘degrowth’, the latter being an exemplary utopian approach to the human relationship toward the environment. Since the destructive attitude toward nature is the main cause of pandemic outbreaks, and both issues are of interest to bioethics, the latter should consider the attitude towards pandemics in a utopian way, primarily because the human destructiveness towards life stems primarily from the current socio-economic system. A characteristic of non-utopian thinking is that it neglects the reasons for the occurrence of certain moral conflicts, thus enabling it to be constantly perpetuated. As I try to show in the last part of the paper, the pluri-perspective methodology of integrative bioethics provides the tools to thwart this perpetuation. © 2022 University of Rijeka, Faculty of Medicine. All rights reserved.

Relationship between moral responsibility for zoonotic pandemics outbreaks and industrial animal farms

The responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic was first ascribed to persons associated with the Huanan Seafood Market. However, many scientists suggest that this pandemic is actually a consequence of human intrusion into nature. This opens up a whole new perspective for an examination of direct and indirect, individual and collective responsibility concerning this particular pandemic, but also zoonotic pandemics as such. In this context, one of the key issues are the consequences of factory-farming of animals, which contributes to circumstances in which zoonotic pandemics emerge. Moreover, it is part of a larger economic system, global capitalism, whose logic implies certain coercion toward its participants to keep it essentially unchanged and therefore to make sure that livestock health remains “the weakest link in our global health chain” (FAO). However, even though the precise answer to the issue of moral responsibility for zoonotic pandemics outbreaks in general and the COVID-19 pandemic in particular cannot be given, it is possible to list certain indicators and make a framework helpful in ascribing moral responsibility to certain persons. The paper intends to do so by examining the notion of responsibility and by applying it to the issues mentioned. The results of this analysis show that it is misleading to place moral blame on people involved in actions that directly caused the animal-to-human transmission of a certain virus or on humanity as a whole. © 2021, University of Belgrade - Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory. All rights reserved.